


A Fiddle Of Gold Against Your Soul

by Duck_Life



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies, Filming, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Negan Being an Asshole, Psychological Torture, Sad Carl Grimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: After Carl breaks into the Sanctuary, Negan brings him back to Alexandria. As punishment, he forces Carl to tell him all about Lori.





	

When Negan shows up to collect, Rick’s standing on the watch post. It’s like it was by design.

The trucks pull up and the men begin to get out. One shoots a wandering walker in the head and then kicks its body off the road, shouting something. Rick watches from above, watches them spill out like ants from a dirt hill, marching off to collect for their colony.

As soon as Negan gets out, Rick fixates on him, and then on the boy beside him, the boy with one scared eye and Negan’s hand in a death grip on his shoulder. His boy.

The night Carl was born was one of the most terrifying of Rick’s life. Even with everything that’s happened, even with all the bodies stomping around and the people he’s lost, he still counts it in the top ten. He was young and scared and Lori was bleeding, screaming. They wheeled her into an operation room and he didn’t know what was going to happen.

When it was all over, when Lori and the baby were okay and it was really done, someone handed the baby to Rick and the tunnel vision hit him immediately. His son was all he could see, and all he could look at, and all he could do was frantically search for any problems. Counting his fingers and toes over and over again. Checking repeatedly to see that he was breathing, that his eyes were opening.

Right now, he’s dragged viciously back to that night. Tunnel vision. Carl’s all he can see, a scared kid with a scar marring his face, his bandage long gone. And he tries counting fingers, searching him for marks even from the distance.

Because he can’t believe that Negan would let Carl waltz into his sanctuary and then deliver him back without a scratch on him.

 The gate slides open and Negan starts muscling Carl forward. It’s not hard— Carl goes along with him. He feels a little like a ragdoll caught in a tornado, just getting whipped around and dragged onto his next location. He feels like he should be glad he’s been dragged back home, but he can’t help but wonder if Negan’s going to let him stay.

He feels like a fucking idiot for trying to kill Negan.

Once the gate’s open, Rick surges toward him but Negan holds him up with a gesture from Lucille. “No, no, no,” he smirks. “Look at him, he’s completely fine, see? I did you a _favor_. And now you’re going to do _me_ a favor by not looking at him, not talking to him, not interacting with him for the rest of the day.” Rick’s shaking and Carl’s trying not to meet his eyes. “And then maybe he gets to stay.”

“ _Let go of him_.”

Carl’s heard that voice before. He heard it the night he lost his eye. He heard it at Terminus. He heard it the night his dad ripped another man’s throat out with his teeth and repeatedly stabbed Carl’s would-be rapist until the ground was soaked with blood.

And he knows this is different. Rick can’t save him from this. He can’t. He’ll die. “ _Let go of him_ ,” Rick says again, and Carl tries to shake his head, just slightly, just enough so his dad knows.

Because Carl was wrong. He thought they could stand up to Negan and win. He thought _he_ could stand up to Negan and win. He thought his dad was weak for following Negan’s rules, for ducking his head and playing along, but now he gets it.

Carl will let Negan lead him around like a show pony to keep his dad safe. And his dad will do so much more and so much worse to keep _him_ safe.

And Carl can’t let that happen.

“Better watch how you speak to me,” Negan says, jostling Carl a little. “I brought your kid back safe and sound. I think I deserve a thank you.”

Rick’s eyes are wide, and Carl’s reminded of his father’s cold grip on his hand, of a hatchet raised in the air, a thin black line drawn on his arm. Rick’s eyes are wide, and Carl’s suddenly, selfishly hoping that Rick will mindlessly lunge at Negan, beat him, strangle him, kill him with his bare hands. He’s suddenly, selfishly hoping that Rick can punch or shoot or bite his way out of this again. Everything’s completely twisted now, and he just wants it all back to the way it was. He protects Dad. Dad protects him.

“Thank you,” Rick says, and Carl can feel his father trying not to look in his direction. Trying to be obedient.

They walk through the gate, the three of them, and the Saviors follow.

“Okey-dokey,” Negan says, grinning as he swings his bat leisurely, still maintaining his grip on Carl’s shoulder. “Here’s how today’s gonna go. My boys are gonna round up the necessities. And Carl’s gonna take me around and show me the fun stuff. Porn stashes, artsy shit. I didn’t get a close enough look at everything last time.”

Rick nods a few times, looking like a fish flopping hopelessly. “What… what should I do?” And Carl knows he was wrong before to say his dad wasn’t fighting for them, because the truth is that Rick will attack like a wolf if it means protecting his family. Or he’ll roll over like a trained dog. He will, if it means protecting his family.

“I don’t give a flying fuck,” Negan says. “Just stay away from me and one-eyed Willie here. And then maybe, at the end of the day, I’ll think about letting him stay.”

Rick nods again, the same desperate fish-flopping nod. “Thank you.”

Negan leads Carl away, and Carl can feel his dad’s eyes on his back. He suddenly realizes how much he wants to look back. How much he might _need_ to.

Carl keeps his eye trained in front of him and lets Negan lead him into the nearest house.

Most of the Alexandrians try to be elsewhere when the Saviors show up. They go out on runs or go hunting in the woods. Some hole up in the garage-turned-library on the east side of the community, trying to interact with the Saviors as little as possible.

The house Negan leads Carl into is empty at the moment, normally occupied by Aaron and Eric. Carl guesses they’re at the library— Eric rarely leaves the walls anymore and Aaron wouldn’t leave him here alone with the Saviors.

“Have a seat,” Negan says, dropping him onto Aaron and Eric’s couch. He sits opposite Carl on the ottoman, Lucille propped in front of him, and grins. “I have a surprise for you.”

It’s a taunt and a leer and Carl hates that his jaw clenches, that he tenses up, hates that he reacts. Distressing images pop into his head like grenades going off. Negan with that same smile holding Carl’s arms still at his side, Negan with that same smile forcing him against the wall, or the floor, Negan with that same smile reaching down to unbuckle his belt.

It’s a fear that’s been scratching at his brain since being pressed against the dirt the morning after the line-up. Negan forced him down then, and for a moment he felt like he was right back there on the side of the road, that night before Terminus, held helpless on the ground, the Claimer’s breath in his ear.

At the Sanctuary, after he swiped a gun and managed to take out two of the Saviors, it was something Negan threatened him with. Told him he’d let all the men have a turn on him. Later, alone, Negan had negated the threat. He told Carl sexual violence was his least favorite kind of violence. He told Carl that he despised rape.

But Carl saw the wives, saw the way Negan manipulated and coerced them with threats of pain and injury to everyone else around. Negan doesn’t have to call it rape. It’s still rape.

The “surprise” Negan has for him is, apparently, inside an inner pocket of his jacket. He unzips, reaches in and pulls out a camcorder. Deanna’s camcorder. “I watched all the interviews on this,” he tells Carl. “Real touching. That ginger really had a way with words.” Carl tries not to react but he’s pretty sure Negan can tell he’s angry.  And scared. Negan can get to him. Negan can hurt him. Carl just wishes he could stop making that so obvious to him. “Found your interview _really_ interesting, though. ’Specially the kid sitting on your lap. You never told me you had a baby sister.”

“She’s dead,” Carl blurts out, heart pounding with panic. “We lost her a few months ago. Walkers.”

“Really?” Negan says. “Well, that’s weird then that your daddy still keeps her baby monitor around.” Shit. Of course he’s seen the house. Of course he knows. He knows everything. “Don’t worry, I’ll let it slide. Pretty sure it’s not the first or the last time you lie to me.” Carl watches him, trying not to let on the fear taking him over. _He knows, he knows, he knows_. Carl’s so worried about Judith that everything Negan’s saying sounds like static. He has to tune back in. “… that you actually _killed_ your dear sweet mother.” Negan holds up the camcorder and gives Carl an appreciative nod. “That shit’s fucked up.”

Carl swallows and tries not to think about Judith. “I had to,” he says, the same thing he’s told himself over and over since the day it happened. “She was going to turn.” Every nightmare he has about that day, he wakes up and tells himself that. _I had to. She was going to turn_.

“Sure, sure,” Negan says, turning on the camcorder so it’s recording. “I want you to tell me everything about that day.”

“No.” It just kind of rips out of him, even though he knows how dangerous it is to say no to Negan. He can’t do it. Physically, he doesn’t think he’s able to do it. Just thinking about Mom feels like drowning. Talking sounds impossible. “No, I— I can’t. No.”

“Okay, fine,” Negan says, shrugging. “Then let’s go find Daddy and have him chop off your pinky finger.”

Carl shakes his head, feeling like his ears are full of water. “Okay,” he says, looking from Negan to the camera, not knowing which is worse. He settles for staring at the wall behind Negan’s head and begins to talk. “She was… she was pregnant. With the baby.” Negan doesn’t get to know their names. “Really near the end. And we were staying in this prison and… it just got swarmed. There were walkers all through the cell block and we were trying to get away.” Negan’s grinning gleefully. He loves being able to pull stories out of Carl like pulling teeth or fingernails. “And then she… she went into labor. We… Maggie and I, we got her into this closed-off room. Tried to make it safe. And Mom… my mom just went ahead and started having the baby. Like everything was fine.”

Negan smirks, angling the camera closer. “But it wasn’t fine, was it, sport?”

Carl purses his lips, shakes his head, and he’s not going to fucking cry. He can’t, he won’t. Negan wants to see him break down, wants to _film it_ , and Carl’s not going to let it happen. “She was bleeding,” he continues. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t going to work.” He pales suddenly, feeling like the same terrified twelve-year-old kid. “We had to cut her open. Maggie used my knife.” He balls his hands into fists at his side, uncurls them. “She screamed…” He hates giving Negan a reaction, but he can’t help it. His hands are suddenly by his head, gripping his hair, covering his ears, like he can block out the memory of his mother’s scream. That’s usually the worst part of the nightmares. Not the blood, not the shooting. The scream. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ , he thinks, to Lori, the Judith, to Dad. He didn’t want to show Negan how much he hurts, but here he is, telegraphing all the pain and fear and hurt inside him. On camera.

At least he isn’t crying.

“Maggie left with the baby,” Carl says. “And then… I shot her. I shot my mom in the head. Killed her.” He swallows. “I had to,” he says. “She was going to turn.”

“Awesome,” Negan says, still aiming the camera at Carl. “That’s a goddamn soul-shattering confession right there. Bet it sounded even better on tape.”

Carl just stares at him.

From there, they move on to searching Aaron and Eric’s bedroom, Negan still with the camera in his hand. He leaves the bat in the living room.

“So,” he says, filming Carl while he flicks through the photo album he found on the bookshelf, “tell me more about your mom. What she did, who she was. I only got the end of the story downstairs.”

Carl knows that anything he gives up is something Negan can use against him or Dad. But he also knows if he doesn’t give up what Negan wants, something bad happens. Something bad always happens.

“She was a good mom,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. He misses her, so much some days that it feels like it might crack him in half. But he’s not going to cry in front of Negan. “I don’t think she thought so… but she was. She used to make up songs to help me learn spelling words.” Without meaning to, he smiles at the memory.

“Seems like a nice lady,” Negan says. “Too bad you shot her in the fucking head.”

From Aaron and Eric’s house they move onto what used to be the Andersons’ house. There’s still a sculpture Jessie made left in the garage.

Negan whistles when he sees it. It’s abstract, found objects, scrap metal all molded into something. Carl guesses they’ll never know what Jessie was trying to say with it. “I gotta bring that back with me,” Negan says. He gets a shot of the sculpture on camera before moving the shot back to Carl. “Was your mom artistic like this?”

Carl shakes his head. “Wasn’t… really her thing,” he says. “She, um. She used to sing.”

“Right, right,” Negan says. “I knew that already. _You Are My Sunshine_.” When Carl arrived at the Sanctuary, Negan made him sing. It was the only song that popped into Carl’s head. For hours, he sat there and sang it, over and over again, while Negan smirked at him, swinging that damn bat around.  “What else did she like to sing?”

Carl shuts his eye, trying to remember her voice. Trying to find something in it, strength or peace or power. Just something. “Church songs,” he says. “She… she liked any song with Georgia in the name, I remember that. ‘Devil Went Down To Georgia.’ ‘Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.’”

“I bet she had a beautiful voice,” Negan says. “Too bad you shot her in the fucking head.”

The next house they go to is Carl’s, and he immediately tenses up when they cross the threshold. Judith’s upstairs.

“Home sweet home, huh?” Negan says, scanning the room. “There’s some cool shit upstairs, right? Show me.”

Carl leads him up the stairs, every footfall feeling like a betrayal of his sister. Gabriel’s in her room with her, but he knows that won’t matter to Negan. Any time he wants, Negan can kill her. For any reason he wants. He doesn’t even have Lucille with him at the moment, but Carl knows that won’t matter. If Negan decides he wants to kill Judith, he’s going to kill Judith.

Thankfully, Negan ignores the door to Judith’s room and heads for Michonne and Rick’s bedroom. “What the fuck is this?” he says, holding up Michonne’s bizarre cat statuette. “I hate it. I’m keeping it.”

They move onto Carl’s bedroom, and somehow Carl feels like he doesn’t belong in there. Like he’s a stranger in his own room. Negan’s taken too much of him. He’s not himself anymore.

“This must be her,” Negan says, and Carl watches him take his only family photo off its shelf. The one he and Michonne almost died for. “Your mom. She was a skinny thing. Beautiful, though.” He turns the camera back to Carl. “Too bad you shot her in the fucking head.”

Negan’s still holding the photograph, and Carl feels his pulse jumping in his neck. “That’s mine,” he says, his fingernails digging trenches into his palms. “Put it back. Please.”

Negan’s face lights up. “This picture? You want it?” Carl nods, his teeth gritted. “Fine,” Negan says. “All you have to do is kneel.”

Carl feels frozen. That picture is all he has left of his mom. He doesn’t even still have the gun that shot her.

But he can’t kneel. He can’t. He spent a whole night on his knees watching his friends die. He’s not going to let Negan reduce him to this, to a plaything. He’ll do what he can to survive. That’s what Dad’s been doing. He doesn’t need the picture to survive.

“No,” he says.

Negan doesn’t look surprised. He tucks the picture away in his jacket and leaves the room.

When Negan’s hand lands on the doorknob of Judith’s room, Carl feels like his whole body and mind just shut down. “No, no, no,” he says, a string of words ripping out of his throat. “You can’t, you can’t go in there, no, no, not in there, you can’t… she… you can’t.”

Negan turns the knob and grins at Carl. “Looks like I can.”

Gabriel squares up when Negan walks in, but Carl shoots him a look. Nothing they can do. Nothing they can ever do.

Negan strolls over to the crib and scoops up Carl’s whole world. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Judith.” She seems confused but not concerned, her little hands gripping Negan’s jacket, her big eyes roaming across the room. When she sees Carl, she makes grabby hands toward him.

“Please,” Carl says, because Negan can rip everything else away from him but not this, not her. “Please put her down. Please, I’ll… I’ll tell you more about Mom. Just please. Put her down.”

“Okay,” Negan says. “If you kneel.”

And now, he barely thinks about it. Immediately, Carl sinks to his knees, lowers his gaze, stares at the grains of wood in the floor. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t fucking matter who he is or what he has. He gets it now, and he wishes he didn’t.

They do what they need to survive. And he needs Judith to survive.

“There you go,” Negan says, and Carl knows he’s filming this. “See, wasn’t so hard.” Carl waits until he hears Negan put Judith back in her crib before he looks up.

Emotion pricks at the back of his eye and tickles his throat, but he doesn’t relent. He’s not going to cry in front of Negan.

“Alrighty,” Negan says. “Let’s go outside. Bye-bye, Judith.”

They roam beside the wall, and Negan’s apparently dropped all pretense of looking for things to take. He just wants to take more out of Carl. “What was your mom’s favorite color?” he asks, and Carl tells him. “What kind of things did your mom used to cook for you?” he asks, and Carl tells him. “How did you feel when your mom told you she was having a baby?” he asks, and Carl tells him. Carl tells him everything.

And then finally, finally, it looks like it’s over. “Well,” Negan sighs. “My boys are about done loading up the trucks. I only have one more question.”

“Fine.”

“What were her last words?”

Carl stops in his tracks, feeling abruptly hollowed out. “Wha— what?”

“You heard me,” Negan says, relishing in his distress.

“I don’t remember.”

“Bullshit,” Negan says. “You remember. Probably one of the most traumatic experiences of your short, shitty life. I know you remember.”

He does, and he hates it. He hates Negan and he hates himself, he hates every fucking decision ever made that led to this situation, to this moment. “I can’t tell you.” He _won’t_. He never even told Dad. He never even told Michonne.

“Fine by me,” Negan shrugs. “Let’s go back in your house and cut an eye out of baby Judy. Make her match her big bro.”

“‘Goodnight, love,’” he says, lowering his face. “It was the last thing she said to me. ‘Goodnight, love.’” There’s more, and Negan knows there’s more. He holds the camcorder out, capturing every second.

Carl read somewhere that there were people who thought a photograph could trap their soul, steal it away from them. He feels like that’s exactly what Negan’s doing with the camcorder. Pulling everything out of him until he’s nothing. Stealing his soul away.

“She said I was gonna be fine,” Carl says, reliving it. “‘You are gonna beat this world,’ that’s what she said. ‘You are smart and you are strong and you are so brave.’” He doesn’t feel like any of those things right now. He feels scared. He feels empty. “‘It’s so easy to do the wrong thing in this world. So if it feels wrong don’t do it. And if it feels easy don’t do it.’ She said… she told me not to let the world spoil me.” He feels spoiled, inside and out. “She said I was the best… the best thing she ever did. And she said she loved me.”

With Negan shoving a camera in his face, with his mother’s last words wrenching their way out of him, Carl cries. The tears come, collect up in his one good eye and roll down, dampen the earth beneath his feet. He thinks he can hear Negan laughing, but his whole head feels waterlogged, and the dam’s broken, and he cries and cries.

“Your mama lied to you,” Negan says, leaning into his face, one hand lifting up his chin so he can look him in the eye. Carl sniffs, the tears still flowing. “You aren’t gonna beat this world. It’s gonna chew you up and spit you out like garbage. You work for me, Carl. It doesn’t end until you die. And maybe not even then.”

He holds the camcorder up for one last shot of Carl with tears rolling down his cheek, and then he shuts the camera off.

Once the Saviors have driven away, once Alexandria returns back to normal— or what counts for normal now— Rick heads back to his house, drained and desperate to see his son.

Carl’s sitting on the couch, pale and staring into space. “Hey,” Rick says, collapsing on the couch beside him and reaching for Carl immediately. Hands on either side of his face, checking for the damages. Counting fingers. “Did he hurt you?”

Carl shakes his head. “He didn’t touch me.”

“Not what I asked.”

Carl looks at Rick and Rick looks at Carl and neither can say a damn thing. There’s nothing to say. This is life now. Surviving used to mean taking everything you saw, jarred pickles and empty bags and dried up cereal. Now it means giving up everything you have.

“I’m scared,” Carl says. “I’m scared.”

“Me too,” Rick says, and pulls him in, holds him close. Carl wraps his arms around his dad and hangs onto him like they’re in a storm, trying not to be torn apart. “Carl… please don’t leave like that again. _Please_.” And it’s different, it’s so different from every other time Dad’s told him to stay close, to stay inside, to stay safe. Because he’s not telling him. He’s asking. “I can’t… I just can’t. Please don’t leave like that again.”

Whatever monster Carl feels like he’s become, whatever scraped and shattered shell he feels he’s been molded into, Dad still needs him. Dad still loves him. “I won’t.”

 


End file.
